Television broadcasting technology has improved tremendously since its inception. The current generation of broadcasting system technology comprises a number of types of direct satellite broadcasting systems. With these systems, a user, or viewer, receives television programming via a satellite broadcast to their satellite antenna and receiver. The typical satellite broadcasting system has increased in popularity because it provides the user with many viewing options, including hundreds of channels of programming, program directories that allow for channel surfing among program descriptions while watching a particular program on one channel, custom user-formatted menus, message receipt functions from a service provider, and on-demand selection of pay-per-view broadcasts. As the demand for the satellite television systems increases, so to does the demand for systems that can be quickly and easily installed by the user, typically a non-professional satellite system installer.
An area where improvement is desired in the installation of typical satellite television systems is the aiming, or training, of the user antenna to receive a signal from the broadcast satellite. Currently, a typical method for training the antenna comprises moving the antenna around while monitoring the flash frequency of a small light or light-emitting diode. Furthermore, the coarse training may involve moving the antenna around while monitoring a sequence of beeps. The frequency of the flashing light or the beeps serve as an indication of the relative signal strength of the received satellite signal. While providing some coarse guidance, these techniques are not very precise and may lead to a great deal of user frustration.